Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Today, the families of more than 300 children in north Kerry have received details of the findings of a review into the care their children received. This comes on the back of the south Kerry CAMHS review earlier this year which found that 227 children were exposed to risks of serious harm and 46 suffered significant harm.Behind those families are children and families who trusted the system for help.

The review showed that long-term vacant consultant posts and weak governance played a major role in how those failures were allowed to happen. We constantly hear that lessons would be learned. We have to be honest and ask if anything has been learned from this experience. Yesterday, we heard that key posts are still left unfilled in our mental health services, particularly in my home town of Castlerea, County Roscommon. When senior clinical posts are left vacant we create the same risks that exist in Kerry. I commend Deputy Claire Kerrane for raising this with the HSE and finding out this gap is there. When our older person service in Castlerea was closed, the e-mental health hub was opened to great fanfare and CAMHS services were promised. However, Deputy Kerrane has continued to probe that and has found that positions have been left unfilled. We owe it to constituents and people trying to access these services to raise this issue.

Staff on the ground are doing their best but they cannot provide safe services without the right supports, the right staffing and the right leadership. Children and adults who need help cannot wait for recruitment processes that drag on for years. Families deserve to know that when they seek help the service is safe and properly staffed. For this reason, I call for a debate in the House on the CAMHS services that are delivered nationally but also, again, on the mental health services delivered throughout the country for all people, as well as on staffing, governance, accountability and how to ensure safe, consistent mental health care for children and young people throughout this State.